It was popularly believed that the whole case was made up in order to afford an opportunity for the political opinions delivered by the Court. This was an extreme view not justified by the facts. But in the judgment of many conservative men there was a delay in rendering the decision which had its origin in motives that should not have influenced a judicial tribunal. The purport and scope of the decision were undoubtedly known to President Pierce before the end of his term, and Mr. Buchanan imprudently announced in his Inaugural address that "the point of time when the people of a Territory can decide the question of slavery for themselves" will "be speedily and finally settled by the Supreme Court, before whom it is now pending." How Mr. Buchanan could know, or how he was entitled to know, that a question not directly or necessarily involved in a case pending before the Supreme Court "would be speedily and finally settled" became a subject of popular inquiry. Anti-slavery speakers and anti-slavery papers indulged in severe criticism both of Mr. Buchanan and the Court, declaring that the independence of the co-ordinate branches of the government was dangerously invaded when the Executive was privately advised of a judicial decision in advance of its delivery by the Court. William Pitt Fessenden, who always spoke with precision and never with passion, asserted in the Senate that the Court, after hearing the argument, had reserved its judgment until the Presidential election was decided. He avowed his belief that Mr. Buchanan would have been defeated if the decision had not been withheld, and that in the event of Fremont's election "we should never have heard of a doctrine so utterly at variance with all truth, so utterly destitute of all legal logic, so founded on error, and so unsupported by any thing resembling argument."